Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 4/6/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Bag Ban Repeal Wrapped Up in Controversy
Apr 6, 2017 | Coastal Review Online
By Catherine Kozak
Flimsy plastic bags might seem like a silly thing to ignite a community, considering how ordinary they are for most shoppers. -
US Business Group Set to Launch Preservatives Competition
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
The Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3) will this month begin accepting entries in its competition to develop new preservatives. -
ACS National Meeting in San Francisco Breaks Attendance Record
Apr 5, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Linda Wang
With nearly 19,000 attendees, the 253rd American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco on April 2-6 reached its highest attendance for a national meeting. -
Energy Secretary Returns to National Security Council Committee
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The energy secretary was added back to a pivotal National Security Council committee after being removed initially in President Donald Trump's January memorandum. -
DOE Deputy Will Be Pressed on Budget Questions Perry Avoided
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
President Trump's nominee to the No. 2 slot at the Energy Department is likely to face a grilling on the administration's proposed budget cuts during his confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said yesterday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Practitioner's Insights: Putting Government to Work for Innovation
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report - Insights
By Cal Dooley
Fostering innovation is a frequent goal of elected officials, but in reality, government's role in innovation is fairly limited. Where government and private sector innovation do intersect, government is more frequently the obstacle, rather than the enabler. -
Slashing EPA Budget Would Harm Kids, Pediatric Specialists Say
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Trump administration's proposal to slash a quarter of the EPA's budget will harm children's health, several professionals who work in the pediatric health field told congressional staff and reporters April 5. -
Trump’s EPA Moves to Dismantle Programs that Protect Kids from Lead Paint
Apr 5, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
Environmental Protection Agency officials are proposing to eliminate two programs focused on limiting children’s exposure to lead-based paint, which is known to cause damage to developing brains and nervous systems. -
Echa Round-Up
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A Norwegian intention to submit an SVHC dossier on further arsenic compounds has been withdrawn from Echa's registry of intentions. The original notification of intention was posted in April 2008. -
Court Is Asked to Rebuff Trump Bid to Pause Litigation
Apr 5, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
States and cities that support the Clean Power Plan today asked a federal court to reject the Trump administration's bid to pause litigation over the rule. -
CPP Backers Oppose Trump DOJ's 'Open-Ended' Request To Pause Suits
Apr 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Environmentalists and a coalition of states that support EPA's greenhouse gas limits for existing power plants are urging an appellate court to reject the Trump administration's request to pause litigation over the rule, arguing that it seeks an “open-ended” delay... -
CEQ Formally Withdraws NEPA GHG Guide
Apr 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is formally withdrawing its guidance for how agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, complying with a requirement in President Donald Trump's... -
Alaska North Slope Resurgence Boosted by Exxon, Conoco Projects
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Robert Tuttle
Alaska's North Slope, once home to America's biggest oilfields, is enjoying a resurgence this year, as producers led by BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips work to boost output from aging wells and extend their reach to new supplies. -
Deja Vu for West Virginia NatGas Forced Pooling, as Legislation Likely to Fail
Apr 5, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The oil and natural gas industry's ongoing attempt in West Virginia to get some kind of law passed to gather landowners into large tracts for unconventional horizontal drilling will likely have to wait another year as the latest legislation remains stuck... -
Coal Is on the Way Out at Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says
Apr 6, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
In Page, Ariz., the operators of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, have announced plans to close it by 2019. -
Renewables Boom; Total U.S. Energy Consumption Inches Up
Apr 5, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By David Hunn
Total energy consumption in the United States increased slightly last year over 2015, pushed largely by a boom in solar, wind and hydro-electric power, according to the Department of Energy. -
Your Health vs. Cracker Plant Jobs
Apr 6, 2017 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Terrie Baumgardner
A petrochemical plant is not the only industry that can bring Beaver County tax revenue, employment opportunities, and thriving hotels and restaurants. -
New York, Other States Challenge Trump Over Climate Change Regulation
Apr 5, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Richard Valdmanis
A coalition of 17 U.S. states filed a legal challenge on Wednesday against efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to roll back climate change regulations, deepening a political rift over his emerging energy policies. -
Dems Demand Answers About Pruitt Memos on Regulations
Apr 5, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
A trio of Senate Democrats is seeking assurances from EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that the agency's efforts to roll back regulations will include input from scientists and citizens in light of two new agency memoranda outlining new procedures for rulemaking. -
GOP Chairman: Climate Change Alarmists Want to 'Control People’s Lives'
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Cristina Marcos
The chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Wednesday that people raising red flags about climate change have ulterior motives beyond wanting to protect the environment. -
Senators Push Bill to Fund Carbon Capture Projects
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Two senators introduced a bill Wednesday to boost carbon capture projects for power plants. -
The Flawed Case Against Pricing Carbon
Apr 5, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Greg Ip
This week Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that humans do indeed contribute to a warming climate.
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Bag Ban Repeal Wrapped Up in Controversy
Apr 6, 2017 | Coastal Review Online
By Catherine Kozak
Flimsy plastic bags might seem like a silly thing to ignite a community, considering how ordinary they are for most shoppers.
But judging by overwhelming push-back from Outer Bankers to a proposed state law that would repeal an eight-year-old ban of the lightweight grocery bags, it seems the majority regard them as a needless blight that endanger marine animals and litter beaches and roadsides.
When then-state Sen. Marc Basnight wrote the bill that led to the current law, it was narrowly tailored geographically to barrier islands so it would be more likely to be passed. For that reason, the ban covers only retail stores on Ocracoke Island in Hyde County, Hatteras Island and Bodie Island – Duck to Nags Head – in Dare County, and Corolla and Carova in Currituck County. Roanoke Island and mainland Dare, which have no Atlantic coastline, are not included in the ban. On the barrier islands, merchants are required to offer recyclable brown paper bags instead of plastic. Customers who bring their own reusable bags are credited 5 cents per bag.
In addition to resolutions opposing repeal recently passed by the towns of Kill Devil Hills, Duck, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Southern Shores, Dare County commissioners this week agreed to act soon on their own resolution opposing reversal of the ban.
When freshman state Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare, and also representing Beaufort, Hyde and Washington counties, was approached by “local merchants” on the Outer Banks to sponsor a bill that would repeal the ban on plastic grocery, Boswell said she thought it made sense that businesses that preferred them should be able “to have plastic bags again.”
Boswell supports those who see the bag ban as an example of government overreach. Why should businesses have to deal with the expense and hassle of replacing plastic bags with heavier brown paper bags? Consumers should be able to choose. And paper, they argue, is worse for the environment than using plastic bags and recycling them.
Again, it’s just the opportunity,” Boswell said in a recent telephone interview from her Raleigh office. “That’s the beauty of this bill.”
Shoppers could bring their own bag, Boswell said, or if they use the store’s plastic bag, they should be encouraged to recycle them. The proposed bill states that voluntary educational programs would promote recycling of the bags.
Her colleague, Rep. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and whose district also includes Corolla in Currituck County, said he does not support repeal of the ban.
Steinburg recently told the Outer Banks Voice he’s received calls and emails that oppose the repeal, 50-1 in favor of keeping the ban. He said Outer Banks had “learned to adjust to it.”
But Boswell’s effort does have support in the Senate. Last Thursday, Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, along with Sens. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, and Andrew Brock, R-Davie, introduced legislation, Senate Bill 539, that also includes a provision that would reverse the bag ban.
“I think that ban hurts stores that sell things that go in bags,” Cook said Monday, chatting after his remarks at the North Carolina Coastal Local Government meeting in Nags Head. “I’ve seen numbers where it’s costing lots and lots of money.”
Cook said he believes Boswell’s bill is a “good bill.”
“Let me put it this way: I ask you, you think those bags stay in one place? No,” he said. “Banning them in those couple of places doesn’t make a difference. In terms of proliferation of bags, it doesn’t make a difference.”
Since the House bill was introduced on March 7, Boswell said she has been inundated by emails and voicemails, many of them filled with “clear and utter hatred.” Fear of similar abuse has kept merchants who favor the repeal from coming forward, she said.
“I never expected this explosion, and especially the threats,” she said in a telephone interview last week.
In one voicemail cited as an example, a male caller repeatedly called Boswell disparaging names, promised that she would be “kicked out (of office) next time” and talked about putting a bag over her head.
“That’s just one,” Boswell said.
Anger was further fanned by an email Boswell sent out that had attached a list of local merchants compiled by the nonprofit North Carolina Retail Merchants Association that inaccurately appeared to imply member stores’ support for the repeal. The trade group was forced to issue an apology after member businesses expressed anger because their names were included in materials Boswell’s office had disseminated.
“Please know the previously distributed list has been updated to include clearer language explaining that the businesses listed in our research document are not necessarily NCRMA members nor does it imply any position on the bill and that the list simply references business to whom the current law applies,” Andy Ellen, the association’s president and general counsel, stated in the letter.
‘People Litter’
Boswell said she doesn’t understand why the same people who don’t want the thin plastic bags on the Outer Banks seem to accept plastic water bottles and plastic bags for ice and fish.
“Or what about balloons?” she wondered.
The problem, Boswell said, is that people litter – not just plastic, but other garbage like beer cans and cigarettes that can be seen on roadsides and beaches.
“Pollution is not just a plastic bag,” she said. “We need to educate and stop the whole pollution problem.”
Boswell said she is working on another bill to address the broader litter issue, similar to the “Don’t Mess with Texas” initiative, an anti-littering campaign that began in the late 1980s.
Opposition to limits or fees for plastic bag use is consistent with Boswell’s conservative, anti-government regulation stance. Her bill equates with versions drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a conservative nonprofit group. An earlier repeal effort in North Carolina in 2011 never gained traction in the General Assembly.
American Chemistry Council and the American Progressive Bag Alliance have also worked nationwide to fight plastic bag bans or limits on their use. According to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, about 15 states have some kind of plastic bag regulation, and 23 states in 2015-16 proposed regulations. Last year, California became the first state in the nation to approve a statewide ban of the bags.
Language in Boswell’s bill states that businesses have had to spend “substantial capital” to comply with the bag ban, and that it hinders job creation and impacts large and small businesses throughout the state.
But it seems as if Outer Banks consumers and businesses long ago adjusted to shopping without plastic bags, and over the years have seen the benefit of the decreased numbers of wispy bags blowing around, clogging drainage ditches and littering beaches.
Environmentalists condemn the bags as a danger to marine life and waterways. Sea turtles and sea birds often confuse the bags for food, and small animals can become entangled in them. And since the plastic is not biodegradable, even when bags break down, the plastic remains in the environment.
Not only does The Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce oppose the repeal, numerous local business owners have spoken out against undoing the ban.
In a recent statement by the 1,100-member chamber, it said that retailers have adapted their practices to the ban and repeal would have no impact on hiring. Rather, it said, retailers value “being in tune with their community and environment.”
During last weekend’s “Trash Attack” community sweep in Kill Devil Hills, Mayor Sheila Davies noted that her group had to pick up only five plastic bags.
“Town-wide, the sentiment and comments were that ‘We don’t see these bags here like we used to’,” she said.
Davies remembered being skeptical about public acceptance of the ban after the bill was first enacted, expecting to hear a lot of complaining from merchants and consumers.
“I was pleasantly surprised that that was not the case,” she said. “In fact, many of the small businesses not included in the ban have willingly switched to paper or something (reusable) that’s not required – and that speaks volumes.”
Ivy Ingram, co-chair of the Outer Banks chapter of Surfrider Foundation, a national organization that advocates for clean oceans and waterways, said she wrote to Boswell in late March to encourage further discussion about litter and plastic. She also wanted to assure her that Surfrider promotes respectful dialogue and does not condone attacks against her.
“I do think it’s worth pointing out that the ban was put in place here to protect wildlife in an area that sees high wind, overfilled trash cans, minimal recycling options (at the time) and in close proximity to waterways,” she wrote. “It was not a ban because paper is overall environmentally better.”
Paper bags degrade in about a month, she added, but it takes plastic at least 10 years and as much as a century to break down.
Ingram said that with such a high volume of tourists on the barrier islands in the summer, it is not practical to expect them take plastic bags back to a store – currently the only means available for recycling.
And the thicker, biodegradable plastic shopping bags, she said, cost 50 percent more than paper bags – also not a practical option.
“There are solutions to a lot of the obstacles she is citing,” Ingram said in a telephone interview. “It is certainly something that deserves discussion.”
Potentially, she said, if the bag credit is an economic issue it could be removed. Or perhaps a bag tax rather than a bag ban might be a more effective consumer motivator to bring reusable bags.
House Bill 271 is scheduled to be heard in the House environment committee on April 20 – Earth Day.
“It’s ironic,” Ingram said.
http://www.coastalreview.org/2017/04/bag-ban-repeal-wrapped-controversy/
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US Business Group Set to Launch Preservatives Competition
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
The Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3) will this month begin accepting entries in its competition to develop new preservatives.
Launched last year, with crowdsourcing firm InnoCentive, the aim is to identify promising, safe preservation systems for personal care and household products, and help bring them to market.
Until now, the council has focused on finding product manufacturers to sponsor it. Thirteen companies – including personal care giants Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Beiersdorf – have signed up. They will help design the competition, judge submissions and partner with the preservative manufacturers to evaluate their products. An NGO and government agency is participating as well.
Four preservative manufacturers will be less involved but have access to the technologies submitted.
Open to ideas
GC3 is casting a wide net to find promising ideas, says project lead Monica Becker. Entries could be broad spectrum preservation systems, or single-acting preservative agents, acting on particular forms of bacteria, yeast, or mould. The competition is also open to preservative boosters, multi-functionals and non-chemical alternatives.
Entries will be judged based on a criteria document developed by the council. This will be published when the competition opens.
Although the document will specify criteria such as a pH range and shelf-life requirements, GC3 is flexible about what an entry should include.
"We are very open and want to hear from anyone that has a good idea, whether it is at an early or at a later stage," says Ms Becker.
Although the innovator needs to provide a convincing argument that their preservative is safe and effective, the council is not prescriptive regarding the type of data required.
Once the entries are in, the council will do its own performance validation testing, Ms Becker says, and safety screening "mainly based on modelling and literature reviews". Any testing and its results will be shared with the innovator.
The competition will take at least eight months. Four of these are given to application submissions, and four to the validation and judging process.
At the end, GC3 hopes to have found several promising ideas and divide its prize pool between about five finalists.
Ms Becker says the competition is meant to have a global reach and encourage several business arrangements between chemical suppliers and innovators. And "it will hopefully raise awareness of the need to bring new ideas [for preservation systems] forward."
Trends in preservative choice
The project is tackling a prominent problem for the personal care and other sectors in Europe and in the US, which are struggling to adjust to a shrinking pool of preservatives.
At the CW+BiocidesHub Biocides USA conference last week, Linda Sedlewicz from Schülke – one of the project's sponsors – said the personal care industry is having to rethink its use of preservatives because of legislation and market demands for "free of" labels on products.
She said there are trends towards using organic acids, alcohols and multi-functionals. And combining different substances is also on the rise – something that can improve a preservative system's efficacy and reduce the content of single ingredients in the final formulation, helping to comply with restrictions, or bring down allergy potentials.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55012/us-business-group-set-to-launch-preservatives-competition
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ACS National Meeting in San Francisco Breaks Attendance Record
Apr 5, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Linda Wang
With nearly 19,000 attendees, the 253rd American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition in San Francisco on April 2-6 reached its highest attendance for a national meeting.
Programming by more than 29 technical divisions and six committees highlighted the meeting’s theme, “Advanced Materials, Technologies, Systems, and Processes.” Among the symposia sponsored by ACS President Allison Campbell was a star-studded session on chemistry’s many “holy grails,” held in honor of the 50th anniversary of Accounts of Chemical Research and the journal’s special issue on the same topic. And in a session open to all attendees, the ACS Board of Directors hosted lively TED-like talks by two luminary scientists: Joseph DeSimone of Carbon Inc. and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who spoke about 3-D printing, and Anne Andrews of the University of California, Los Angeles, who spoke about brain research.
Bradley D. Olsen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology described advances in designing and characterizing polymer networks in the Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture. Afterward Jennifer A. Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, talked about the development of the powerful gene editing technique CRISPR in the Fred Kavli Innovations in Chemistry Lecture.
In society news, the ACS Board of Directors revealed that it is developing a statement based on the society’s core value of diversity and inclusion in response to the North Carolina law known as House Bill 2, or the “bathroom bill,” and a similar bill in Texas. The move comes at a meeting where inclusion was front and center: Also among Campbell’s slate of presidential symposia was the inaugural LGBT Graduate & Postdoctoral Student Chemistry Research Symposium.
The board also decided to hold a discussion on the topic of ACS in 2030 at the June 2017 board meeting.
At the ACS Council meeting, councilors selected two candidates for 2018 ACS president-elect: Bonnie A. Charpentier of Cytokinetics Inc. and Willie E. May, recently retired from National Institute of Standards & Technology.
The Committee on Budget & Finance reported on the society’s 2016 financial performance at the council meeting. Revenues totaled $526.8 million, and net contribution from operations reached $23.8 million, $7.2 million more than had been budgeted. The society’s total expenses were $503 million, and its unrestricted net assets reached $206.5 million, a 26.5% increase from the end of 2015. Council approved an increase of membership dues from $166 in 2017 to $171 in 2018.
In other actions, Council approved a new distribution formula for division funding. It also approved changing the name of the Santa Clara Valley Local Section to the Silicon Valley Local Section. Council also held a special discussion on improving governance design.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/04/ACS-national-meeting-in-San-Francisco-breaks-attendance-record.html
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Energy Secretary Returns to National Security Council Committee
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The energy secretary was added back to a pivotal National Security Council committee after being removed initially in President Donald Trump's January memorandum.
The secretary, along with top intelligence and defense officials, was returned to the Principals Committee of the National Security Council, which has been the senior interagency forum on national-security policy.
In a reorganization of the key committee, Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon was removed, according to a presidential memorandum released April 5. The move was overseen by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser who replaced Michael T. Flynn.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was pleased that the energy secretary was returned to his seat on the council. Pallone had sent a letter in February urging Trump to return the secretary to the position to be involved on top security issues.
“As the nation's top official charged with overseeing the safety of the nation's nuclear arsenal and energy grid, it is critical that the Secretary be at the table for national security deliberations,” Pallone said in an April 5 statement.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108714128&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108714128&jd=108714128
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DOE Deputy Will Be Pressed on Budget Questions Perry Avoided
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
President Trump's nominee to the No. 2 slot at the Energy Department is likely to face a grilling on the administration's proposed budget cuts during his confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said yesterday.
Trump this week nominated Dan Brouillette, currently the senior vice president and head of public policy at the Texas-based United Services Automobile Association, to be deputy secretary at DOE (E&E Daily, April 4).
Several senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week said they were unfamiliar with the nominee or know of him only by reputation. However, they said Brouillette's confirmation hearing is likely to be less about the nominee's credentials than a forum on Trump's plans for DOE, which is targeted for budget cuts and the outright elimination of numerous popular programs under the administration's fiscal 2018 budget blueprint submitted last month (Greenwire, March 16).
While Energy Secretary Rick Perry largely coasted through his confirmation hearing in January, he was able to deflect questions over leaked administration documents that signaled major cuts were in store for the department under Trump. At the time, Perry said that he was unaware of Trump's plans for the department but assured senators he would fight for research dollars (E&E Daily, Jan. 20).
Brouillette's hearing will be "very different," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a senior member of the panel and a former chairman, said in an interview yesterday.
"This is a hearing where those budget cuts will be front and center," he said. "This budget is hostile to a lot of important priorities."
Trump's proposed budget cuts have triggered far-reaching concerns across the Department of Energy. One DOE career staffer, who asked to remain anonymous because DOE officials were not cleared to talk to the press, said the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy heard about looming budget cuts from Daniel Simmons, a political appointee who formerly served as vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research and former director of the natural resources task force at the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
Simmons, the staffer said, touched on severe cuts the office would face based on White House numbers and the president's desire to boost defense spending but offered no insight into how the administration coordinated or discussed the cuts with the agency. The White House last month asked Congress to cut DOE by $1.43 billion in fiscal 2017 to help fund a $33 billion hike in supplemental defense spending for the final six months of the year (Greenwire, March 28).
Trump's budget blueprint calls for the elimination of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program and the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. It also seeks budget cuts for the department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and Fossil Energy Research and Development program.
The budget has been panned by Democrats, while also sparking more muted concerns from Republican backers of DOE.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said yesterday that unlike Perry, she anticipates Brouillette will be put in the position of defending the budget.
"I think that becomes a bigger part of the discussion with the nominee," she said.
Energy panel member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said yesterday that she's "very concerned" about the direction DOE is headed after the budget's release.
"I think they're going to have to be able to answer about visions and priorities," she said.
Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who was unfamiliar with the nominee, echoed the point.
"I've just been at home and my constituents are loud and clear: They believe in science, they want our government to believe in science," she said. "They want our agencies who are in charge of critical resources to believe in science."'
Very anxious' over nominees
Murkowski said she will schedule a nomination hearing for Brouillette as soon as possible but noted that as of yesterday, the committee had not received the nominee's paperwork.
She also noted lingering frustration over the slow pace of nominees from the White House, saying she spoke with Perry last month before his surprise visit to Yucca Mountain and he was "very anxious to have a full team in place."
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is also "clearly frustrated" at the delays in filling the top slots at his department, she added.
Murkowski said she's recently made inquiries to other Senate committee chairmen to assess whether they are processing nominees under their jurisdiction. "Nobody is," she said.
Despite the delays, rumors have abounded for weeks that the White House was on the verge of filling key energy and environmental slots, including the three vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which currently lacks a voting quorum.
"Everything is imminent," Murkowski said sarcastically.
While the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee yesterday approved the nomination of Jeffrey Rosen to be the Transportation Department's deputy secretary, Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said he's still waiting for a host of other slots in his panel's jurisdiction to be filled.
The reason for the delay is unclear, he said. "The background process, especially in the current environment, seems to be more time-consuming," he said. "But then part of it is I don't know if they're just not getting names up there."
Reminded of Trump's comment a few weeks ago that it might be "unnecessary" to fill scores of appointed slots within the federal government, Thune conceded that the president's view may be a factor (E&E Daily, March 6).
"That's maybe part of it, but we're ready to move and as quickly as we can," he said.
Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/04/06/stories/1060052705
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(ACC Mentioned) Practitioner's Insights: Putting Government to Work for Innovation
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report - Insights
By Cal Dooley
Cal Dooley is the president of the American Chemistry Council, which represents companies that engage in business of chemistry.
Fostering innovation is a frequent goal of elected officials, but in reality, government's role in innovation is fairly limited. Where government and private sector innovation do intersect, government is more frequently the obstacle, rather than the enabler. President Donald Trump has vowed to change this equation and has even announced a new White House office to put innovation to work to solve our country's most vexing problems. But there are also immediate and tangible ways that the Trump Administration can put government to work for innovation.
In a major victory for American consumers and America's economy, last summer Congress passed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA) to modernize the way chemicals are regulated in the United States. The new law outlines a sophisticated, efficient 21stcentury system to assess chemicals for safety. After years of negotiation and input from many stakeholders, the LCSA carefully balances the need to protect health and the environment while also supporting American competitiveness.
Implementation of the LSCA began almost immediately. Under the previous administration, the Environmental Protection Agency made important progress toward putting the pieces of a new oversight framework in place. It became clear though that in certain areas, the EPA was misinterpreting the new law with very real consequences for American manufacturers and our economy.
Part of the agency's job is to review new chemicals before they come to market. Although the new chemicals program was understood to work well under the old law, the LCSA made some modest but important amendments.
The improvements were intended to enhance the EPA's ability to analyze substances before they enter commerce and to ensure that the agency has sufficient information to make decisions. The amendments codified the EPA's mandate to address vulnerable populations and to ensure transparency in its decisions. The changes did not alter the legal standard for review of new chemicals and were not intended to radically modify or indiscriminately extend the EPA reviews of new chemicals.
Reviews Mired in Inefficiencies
Unfortunately, the EPA's new chemical reviews have become mired in inefficiencies, causing significant delay for manufacturers. As of the end of February, the backlog of new chemicals awaiting approval has doubled from 331 to 658 (based on the latest information available). During this time EPA has completed its review of only 33 substances, a sharp decline for a program that has historically reviewed about 1,000 substances every year.
New chemicals are the building blocks for countless new products and materials that make life healthier, safer, more productive and more enjoyable. By reviewing and green-lighting these innovations, EPA's New Chemicals Program plays a central role in maintaining America's competitive edge.
Historically, the U.S. has led the world in developing and commercializing new chemistries. In fact, prior to implementation of the LCSA, three times as many new chemicals were introduced in the U.S. than in other countries. An efficient new chemicals review program is essential to U.S. leadership in the development of new products and transformational technologies.
The breakdown of the new chemical reviews couldn't come at a worse time. The business of chemistry is experiencing historic growth in the U.S. thanks to plentiful, affordable domestic natural gas supplies. More than 290 chemical industry projects including new facilities, expansions and restarts valued at $179 billion are planned or have broken ground. It's projected these developments will create 462,000 new jobs by 2025. Over 60 percent of this new investment comes from abroad, meaning that U.S. chemistry is “insourcing” jobs. Impeding the essential functions of new product development and commercialization could cause some to question the wisdom of their investments.
To its credit, the EPA has begun to address the procedural and substantive issues raised by its interpretation of the LCSA's changes to the program. However, we need strong leadership and direction from Administrator Scott Pruitt to ensure that the new chemicals program reflects the legal standard, speed and flexibility that Congress envisioned.
The chemical industry is dedicated to the success of the LCSA as a modern, strong and efficient law to regulate chemicals in commerce, including ensuring EPA has the funding it needs to implement this important Act. We are committed to investing in research and development here at home to drive American competitiveness and growth. With an equal commitment from EPA, the United States can remain the world's leading innovator and the most attractive place in the world to invest.
Cal Dooley is president of the American Chemistry Council. He represented the 20th District of California as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 2004.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108714093&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108714093&jd=108714093
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Slashing EPA Budget Would Harm Kids, Pediatric Specialists Say
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Trump administration's proposal to slash a quarter of the EPA's budget will harm children's health, several professionals who work in the pediatric health field told congressional staff and reporters April 5.
“Environmental health is all about prevention not about treatment,” Jerome Paulson, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at George Washington University's School of Medicine and Health Sciences, said. “As a pediatrician, I know that there is almost nothing that I can do to treat children who have been injured by environmental health hazards. There is no pill or portion I can prescribe to repair lungs that have been damaged by air pollution.”
He said cuts to the EPA's budget will harm the health of children and adults and make his work and that of other health professionals more difficult. Paulson also advises the Children's Environmental Health Network, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Paulson was among the health care professionals, researchers and a federal policy analyst who spoke on Capitol Hill at a presentation on the EPA's role in protecting children's health, and the impact of the 25 percent cut to the agency's budget proposed for fiscal year 2018. The Children's Environmental Health Network and the University of California, San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment organized the event.
Appropriations Committees
Reaction from appropriations committees divided along party lines with Republicans remaining reticent.
“Congress will carefully consider the proposals presented by the administration as the FY18 budget process moves forward,” Stephen Worley, majority spokesman for the Senate Committee on Appropriations told Bloomberg BNA by email.
Some of the Democrats by contrast spoke out.
“Democrats stand strongly opposed to efforts to undermine or weaken EPA's critical role in protecting public health from environmental hazards,” Matt Dennis, spokesman for the Democrats on the the House Committee on Appropriations, told Bloomberg BNA by email.
Cuts he said the Democrats intend to oppose include:
• the elimination of the EPA's lead risk reduction program, which sets cleanup standards for lead-based paint cleanups and educates the general public, realtors and building remodelers about lead, lead hazards, and their prevention;
• a $2.3 million cut the EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection, which helps coordinate regulatory office efforts to ensure children's health vulnerabilities and exposures are considered environmental health risks in regulatory decisions; and
• more than $82 million in cuts to research funded and conducted by the EPA's Office of Research and Development.
These cuts and fiscal year 2016 funding levels were detailed in a March 21 memo first obtained by the Washington Post from David Bloom, the EPA's acting chief financial officer.Usual Dance?
The proposed cuts are so dramatic that some people have called President Donald Trump's budget “dead on arrival.”
Attorneys and other policy watchers also have told Bloomberg BNA the proposed budget is part of a routine “dance” between the executive branch and Congress, in which this and previous administrations have proposed cuts to EPA programs it expects Congress to reinstate.
Yet the proposed governmentwide cuts to programs that support the elderly and poor, research and other public health services are so dramatic that Congress may be hard pressed to fully fund some needed services, including some EPA programs, Linda McCauley, dean of the Emory University School of Nursing, told Bloomberg BNA.
$14M Increase for Chemicals
Despite the drastic cuts to other programs, the agency's budget and staffing for chemical risk review and reduction would increase by $14 million and 53.6 full-time employees under Trump's budget blueprint. That increase would help the agency implement the amendments Congress made to the Toxic Substances Control Act last summer. The $14 million boost would add to the fiscal year 2016 budget of $19.7 million and 238.7 full-time employees that the agency had for TSCA.
Among other mandates, the TSCA amendments require the EPA to consider health risks to children as it evaluates chemicals.
The chemicals office, however, doesn't work in a vacuum, McCauley told Bloomberg BNA.
Increased funding, alone, may not help the agency implement TSCA if it doesn't also have the expertise from the children's health, research and other offices, she said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108714122&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108714122&jd=108714122
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Trump’s EPA Moves to Dismantle Programs that Protect Kids from Lead Paint
Apr 5, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
This post has been updated.
Environmental Protection Agency officials are proposing to eliminate two programs focused on limiting children’s exposure to lead-based paint, which is known to cause damage to developing brains and nervous systems.
The proposed cuts, outlined in a 64-page budget memo revealed by The Washington Post on Friday, would roll back programs aimed at reducing lead risks by $16.61 million and more than 70 employees, in line with a broader project by the Trump administration to devolve responsibility for environmental and health protection to state and local governments.
Old housing stock is the biggest risk for lead exposure — and the EPA estimates that 38 million U.S. homes contain lead-based paint.
Environmental groups said the elimination of the two programs, which are focused on training workers in the safe removal of lead-based paint and public education about its risks, would make it harder for the EPA to address the environmental hazard.
One of the programs falling under the ax requires professional remodelers to undergo training in safe practices for stripping away old, lead-based paints from homes and other facilities.
The training program for remodelers was set up under a 2010 EPA regulation that aims to reduce exposure to toxic lead-paint chips and dust by requiring renovators to be certified in federally approved methods of containing and cleaning up work areas in homes constructed before 1978.
The rule applies to a broad range of renovations, including carpet removal and window replacement, in homes inhabited by pregnant women and young children.
Some operators in the home renovation industry have criticized the rule as too costly, noting that some customers simply opt to hire contractors who deliberately skirt the federal standards.
Lead is a potent neurotoxin, and particularly harmful to children and the elderly. Its dangers in gasoline, paint and drinking water have been scientifically documented over many decades, which has led to stronger regulatory protections.
In a 2014 report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 243,000 children had blood lead levels above the danger threshold — and that permanent neurological damage and behavior disorders had been associated at even lower levels of lead exposure.
“The most common risk factor is living in a housing unit built before 1978, the year when residential use of lead paint was banned in the United States,” the CDC found.
EPA spokeswoman Julia Valentine said in an email that the two programs facing cuts are “mature,” and that the goal of their elimination is to return “the responsibility for funding to state and local entities.”
The Lead Risk Reduction Program, which would be cut by $ 2.56 million and 72.8 full-time equivalent employees, is charged with certifying renovators who work in buildings that may contain lead-based paint and upholding federal safety standards for such projects. Located in the agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, the lead risk reduction program also helps educate Americans about how to minimize their exposure to lead in their homes.
The second cut, a much deeper $ 14.05 million, would zero out grants to state and tribal programs that also address lead-based paint risks.
“The basis for the EPA reduction is that states can do this work, but then we’re going to take away the money we’re going to give to states,” said Jim Jones, who headed the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which administers the lead-based paint program, in the Obama years. “I think it’s just one of many examples in that budget of the circular thinking there that just doesn’t hold together.”
But the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, which represents some of the industry’s biggest players, welcomed the plan to abolish the two programs. The association’s chief executive, Fred Ulreich, said in a statement that the group “has long supported moving” the Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program “from EPA down to the individual states.”
Fourteen states — Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin — run programs to train contractors how to properly handle renovations involving lead paint, according to the EPA’s website. The rest rely on the federal government to provide training.
Ulreich said in his statement that his group “believes that the program can be better run and enforcement can be more vigorous the closer it is to the local contractors.”
But Ulreich added that the group would object to states who seek to run a lead “abatement program.” The group has successfully delayed a program in Maryland that goes further than the current federal requirements when it comes to lead paint removal.
Erik Olson, who directs the Natural Resources Defense Council’s health program, said in an interview that the move leaves children in dozens of states unprotected.
“If the state doesn’t have a program, which is true in most states, and if the EPA doesn’t have a program, how are you going to have compliance with the lead rules?” Olson asked. “Basically, this is the guts of the program that protects kids from lead poisoning from paint.”
State efforts to reduce lead risks have had mixed results. In 2004, New Jersey created the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Fund, which was supposed to provide loans and grants to homeowners and landlords to help them remove lead-based paint from aging housing stock. The program was supposed to be funded by sales tax revenue from cans of paint, which was expected to be $7 million to $14 million a year.
Instead, over the next dozen years, the legislature and Democratic and Republican governors diverted more than $50 million from the fund to payment of routine bills and salaries.
The EPA’s Valentine said in an email that the agency is “working towards implementing the president’s budget based on the framework provided by his blueprint,” and that “while many in Washington insist on greater spending, EPA is focused on greater value and real results.”
The cuts to the lead-paint programs would not directly affect EPA programs related to lead in drinking water, as in the case of Flint, Mich. Those programs fall under the agency’s Office of Water. But the EPA memo does propose reducing funding and staff for the agency’s drinking water programs as well.
Changes to how the federal government addresses lead paint could affect hundreds of thousands of renovators, noted Remodeling magazine Editor in Chief Craig Webb.
The latest U.S. Census classified 78,000 firms as being in residential remodeling, with 278,921 employees. But since the 2010 rule also affects many siding, painting and wallcovering contractors, as well as individual proprietors, the number could be much higher.
The EPA announced in November 2016 that they had pursued more than 100 enforcement actions for lead-based paint hazards, many of those focused on the nation’s largest companies.
In 2014, Lowe’s home improvement chain agreed to pay $500,000 and create a compliance program across its 1,700 stores as part of a settlement agreement with the EPA.
Lowe’s had “failed to provide documentation showing that the contractors it hires to perform renovation projects for Lowe’s customers had been certified by EPA, had been properly trained, had used lead-safe work practices, or had correctly used EPA-approved lead test kits at renovation sites,” the agency charged. (The company did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.)
Later, Sears reached a similar settlement with the agency. Sears also declined to comment for this story.
The National Association of Home Builders has objected to EPA’s regulation, charging that it is “an inefficient tool for achieving the environmental and health goals of the underlying statute and rule.”
On Tuesday, association spokeswoman Elizabeth Thompson said in an email: “At this point, it is premature to comment until something official has been announced.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/05/trumps-epa-moves-to-defund-programs-that-protect-children-from-lead/?utm_term=.0594d9327eb9
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Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Withdrawal of SVHC intention
A Norwegian intention to submit an SVHC dossier on further arsenic compounds has been withdrawn from Echa's registry of intentions. The original notification of intention was posted in April 2008.
Harmonised classification and labelling intention
Echa has added a harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) intention to its registry for tris(2-methoxyethoxy)vinylsilane. Austria is proposing a future entry in Annex VI of the CLP Regulation addressing reproductive toxicity 1B. Submission of the dossier is expected on 28 April.
CLH consultations
Echa is looking for comments on a CLH proposal for:
· 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, di-C8-10-branched alkylesters, C9-rich; [1] di-"isononyl" phthalate.
This is an industrial chemical used mainly as a plasticiser in PVC. It has no existing harmonised classification and labelling in Annex VI to CLP. Comments are invited on the reproductive toxicity hazard class by 19 May.
And the agency has also launched a public consultation on the proposal to harmonise the classification and labelling of ethanol, 2,2'-iminobis-, N-(C13-15-branched and linear alkyl) derivatives.
An initial public consultation ended on 16 January. However, a technical problem meant that Annex I to the report was not available at the time. This contains detailed study summaries that are the basis of the proposal.
The consultation is now open for the reproductive toxicity hazard class. The deadline for comments is 25 April.
Updated REACH 2018 statistics
The agency has updated its May 2018 deadline statistics. The number of new registration numbers granted, following submission of a dossier, has reached 8,547. These are for for 4,257 unique substances.
Lead registrant list updated
The agency has updated the list of substances for which a lead registrant has been declared in REACH-IT. There are now more than 10,000 substances that have a joint submission and are either already registered, or going to be, for the 2018 deadline.
Guidance
Several chapters from the new draft of the updated Echa Guidance on information requirements and chemical safety assessment have been sent to the competent authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal) for consultation. The chapters in question are R.11, R.7b, R.7c and Part C related to PBT/vPvB assessment.
Meanwhile, the updated Guidance in a nutshell on identification and naming of substances under REACH and CLP (version 2.0) has been translated from English and is now available in 23 languages.
Pre-registration reminder
Echa has reminded importers and manufacturers to pre-register low volume, existing substances by 31 May. This is the last date for pre-registration of non-CMR phase-in substances. Meeting this deadline allows companies to continue supplying the chemicals legally in the EU/EEA.
The agency points out that, after that date, those without a valid substance pre-registration, or registration, will have to submit an inquiry to Echa and register their chemical before making or importing it.
https://chemicalwatch.com/54995/echa-round-up
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Court Is Asked to Rebuff Trump Bid to Pause Litigation
Apr 5, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
States and cities that support the Clean Power Plan today asked a federal court to reject the Trump administration's bid to pause litigation over the rule.
In a court filing, the states and cities say granting the government's request would waste "substantial resources," including those involved in preparing for nearly seven hours of oral arguments held last September.
The case involves "critical live disputes over the scope of the Clean Air Act" that remain relevant no matter what the Trump administration ultimately does with the rule, the parties also argued.
Further, they said, pausing the case would hurt their "longstanding and compelling interest in addressing the largest sources of pollution that is causing climate-change harms now."
The Obama administration rule would require states to develop and put in place plans to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. More than two dozen states, as well as dozens of industry entities, challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Last week, the Trump administration filed a motion to hold the case in abeyance after President Trump signed an executive order that calls for reviewing the Clean Power Plan.
The states and cities signing on to today's court filing, which include New York, Massachusetts and California, all intervened in the litigation on behalf of U.S. EPA under the Obama administration. A similar group of states today also asked the D.C. Circuit to reject the Trump administration's motion to pause litigation over the Obama administration's carbon rule for new power plants.
Environmental groups that intervened in the cases are also expected to oppose the government's motions.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/04/05/stories/1060052680
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CPP Backers Oppose Trump DOJ's 'Open-Ended' Request To Pause Suits
Apr 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Environmentalists and a coalition of states that support EPA's greenhouse gas limits for existing power plants are urging an appellate court to reject the Trump administration's request to pause litigation over the rule, arguing that it seeks an “open-ended” delay of the court proceedings while citing only a “vague intent” to review and potentially change the rule.
“This Court should reject EPA's attempt to rely on its vague, eleventh-hour representations to obtain an indefinite delay in this proceeding,” says New York and 16 other states, as well as the District of Columbia and several large municipalities, in an April 5 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al.
The high-profile litigation over EPA's Clean Power Plan (CPP) was argued before an en banc panel of the D.C. Circuit more than six months ago.
But just hours after President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting the rule, as well as the companion rule for new plants and several other Obama-era climate measures, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought to hold the suit in abeyance, citing the agency's nascent review of the regulation. DOJ filed a similar request in litigation over the new source performance standards (NSPS).
The states and environmentalists had earlier pledged to oppose the requests, saying the court's ruling will be instructive regardless of how the Trump EPA proceeds.
Observers have also noted that a D.C. Circuit ruling -- particularly if it upholds the CPP -- could complicate a rollback effort by rejecting one or more claims from challengers.
A top lawyer representing electric cooperatives in the power plant GHG litigation recently expressed confidence that the D.C. Circuit will grant DOJ's request to pause litigation over the NSPS, but said it is “less clear” if the court will also halt the high-profile West Virginia suit.
“Ultimately, the decision to hold the case in abeyance rests in the court's exercise of its discretion,” said a March 31 client alert co-authored by Crowell & Moring attorneys Thomas Lorenzen and Daniel Leff.
The state coalition also filed a similar April 5 brief in the NSPS litigation, North Dakota, et al. v. EPA, et al. It notes that resolving several key issues in that suit “will remove a cloud of uncertainty from the Rule and provide clarity to EPA should in fact seek to revise the Rule in the future.”
They add: “To the extent any question exists about EPA’s continuing commitment to defend the Rule, State Intervenors stand ready to provide a robust defense of the Rule.”
A coalition of environmental groups also filed a pair of April 5 briefs opposing the administration's stay requests, echoing many of the arguments cited by the states.
In their brief in the NSPS litigation, environmentalists note that while the context in which EPA's motions are presented in the two cases is distinct, the reasoning for why the court should not grant abeyance is similar.
“The Rule for new, modified, and reconstructed sources is currently in effect and not stayed, and oral argument and months of judicial deliberation have not occurred,” they write. “But, as in the Clean Power Plan case, the mere initiation of an administrative 'review' process here is no valid ground for indefinitely delaying judicial review of a final rule, and here too respondent-intervenors would be harmed by EPA's belated attempt to evade that review.”
'Savvy Agency'
In their brief opposing DOJ's request in the CPP case, New York and allied states argue that EPA “has given no concrete indication whatsoever of any imminent change to the Clean Power Plan that would obviate the need for this Court's review of the important legal issues raised in this proceeding.”
They argue that the review “may or may not” result in a new rulemaking to rescind or scrap the CPP, and that EPA has not even said when it will start any new rulemaking process.
The states in their brief cite several previous court rulings warning of agency efforts to avoid final court decisions. For example, they point to the Supreme Court's April 3 decision to continue considering the correct court venue for legal challenges to EPA's Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule, even though DOJ had similarly sought to pause briefing in that litigation after Trump issued an executive order directing the agency to review the rule.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to adjudicate the dispute before it, despite the agencies’ expressed intent to rescind or revise the regulation at issue, undermines EPA’s claim here that its mere intent to review the Clean Power Plan warrants an indefinite delay in this proceeding,” the states say.
The states also cite a 2012 D.C. Circuit ruling in American Petroleum Institute v. EPA, concerning a 2008 Resource Conservation & Recovery Act rule defining certain hazardous materials. In that case, the court ultimately granted the agency's abeyance request, given that it had already issued a new proposed rule and agreed to finalize it within a year.
But the states note that the court in that case “warned about the possibility of a 'savvy agency' using the initiation of a 'new proposed rulemaking' to 'perpetually dodge review,' but found that the risk of abuse was not present because EPA had agreed to finalize the proposed rule by the end of the year,” the states write.
“Here, there is no proposed rule let alone a 'definite end date' for a new final rule. Indeed, there is no definite date to even begin the process of a new rulemaking.”
The states also argue that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) says courts may only stay a rule “until the conclusion of the review proceedings.” But they argue that the “practical effect” of granting DOJ's abeyance request “would be to improperly delay the implementation of the Rule indefinitely without either timely completing the judicial review contemplated by the Supreme Court or engaging in the notice-and-comment procedures required to revoke or modify a regulation.”
Environmentalists in their April 5 brief make a similar claim, arguing that were the court to grant abeyance in the CPP case, it would violate “fundamental requirements of the Clean Air Act and the APA, which forbids agency suspensions of rules without notice and comment rulemaking and a reasoned explanation.”
And they charge that the abeyance EPA seeks “flouts the terms” of the Supreme Court's judicial stay of the rule. “Granting EPA's motion would effectively convert that temporary enforcement relief pending judicial review into a long-term suspension of the Rule likely to continue for years, without any court having issued any decision on the Rule's merits.”
The states also say that the length of any abeyance would be “substantial,” citing a comment from a White House official's press briefing that a revision could take up to three years.
And they charge that if EPA “reverses or retreats” from the scientific or technical analysis supporting the CPP -- citing EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's controversial remark that carbon dioxide is not a “primary contributor” to climate change -- that could delay the process even further.
The states also warn that Trump's preliminary fiscal year 2018 budget request, which seeks a 31 percent cut for EPA including significant climate regulatory funding cuts, could mean that EPA might not “even have the scientific, legal and technical staff necessary to undertake a new rulemaking.”
'Extraordinary Efforts'
Meanwhile, the states underscore the significant effort that the D.C. Circuit and a range of parties have put into the litigation. They note that merits briefing consumed more than 1,000 pages, including hundreds of pages on “core” legal issues about the scope of EPA's authority to limit power plant GHGs. The Sept. 27 oral arguments stretched almost seven hours.
“This proceeding is thus ripe for a decision from this Court,” the filing says. “By contrast, granting an open-ended, years-long abeyance at the eleventh hour would render meaningless the extraordinary efforts exerted by both this Court and the litigants over the past year.”
New York and the other states supporting the rule -- which have long urged EPA to develop power plant GHG limits -- add that delaying a decision would “concretely harm” them.
“Ever since the Supreme Court’s stay of the Clean Power Plan, a decision from this Court has been an essential prerequisite to clearing the way for enforcement of the Rule’s urgently-required pollution guidelines,” they say.
Also, they seek to rebut a Trump EPA claim that the states will not be harmed because any CPP compliance dates would not take effect until at least 2022.
“[T]his argument ignores the Administrator’s recent statement to 47 governors that he will support 'day-to-day' tolling of compliance deadlines under the Clean Power Plan while this litigation remains pending,” the brief says, citing a March 30 letter from Pruitt. Under such an approach, every day of delay in this case would postpone when the Rule’s significant emission reduction benefits are realized.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/cpp-backers-oppose-trump-dojs-open-ended-request-pause-suits
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CEQ Formally Withdraws NEPA GHG Guide
Apr 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is formally withdrawing its guidance for how agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, complying with a requirement in President Donald Trump's energy independence order.
CEQ Chief of Staff Mary Neumayr, who is also the acting CEQ chair, signed the withdrawal notice, which was published in the April 5 Federal Register.
Neumayr, who moved to CEQ last month from the House Energy & Commerce Committee, took over as acting chair from Ted Boling based on CEQ's order of secession. Boling remains CEQ's associate director for NEPA and is the contact person for the guidance and its withdrawal.
The notice says the GHG guide, finalized Aug. 5, “was not a regulation,” and that it is being “withdrawn for further consideration” under the terms of President Donald Trump's energy-related executive order signed March 28.
“The withdrawal of the guidance does not change any law, regulation, or other legally binding requirement,” the notice says.
The impact of the withdrawal remains unclear, as NEPA advocates and others argue that agencies are still required to consider GHGs and climate impacts of their major actions. They argue that underlying requirement remains and the guidance was intended to promote consistency across agencies.
The Congressional Research Service in a March 30 report on the impact of the withdrawal of the GHG guide concluded that agencies may still consider climate change under NEPA.
“The Guidance was intended to assist federal agencies in determining how and under what circumstances they should consider climate change impacts in their NEPA reviews,” the report says. “The Guidance itself did not establish new requirements. As a result, the rescission may change how agencies identify and consider climate-related impacts, but not necessarily whether they will determine that such analysis may be included in their NEPA reviews.”
The revocation of the guidance is not expected to bring direct litigation, though that could come when agencies conduct NEPA reviews that outside groups believe do not adequately consider GHGs.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) could not be reached for comment on the guide's revocation, though he has been a long-time critic of it as well as actions by CEQ during the Obama administration to adopt policies without a Senate-confirmed chair, saying they “have no legal effect.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ceq-formally-withdraws-nepa-ghg-guide
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Alaska North Slope Resurgence Boosted by Exxon, Conoco Projects
Apr 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Robert Tuttle
Alaska's North Slope, once home to America's biggest oilfields, is enjoying a resurgence this year, as producers led by BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips work to boost output from aging wells and extend their reach to new supplies.
North Slope production rose to 565,000 barrels a day in March, its highest level since December 2013, according to data posted April 4 on Alaska's Department of Revenue website. Total Alaska production was 516,000 barrels a day in January, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, unchanged from the previous January.
It's another sign, along with multibillion-barrel discoveries in recent months by Repsol SA and Caelus Energy LLC, that the area may be reversing decades of declining volumes and investment. North Slope output fell to 515,000 barrels a day in 2016 from 2 million in 1988 as its wells petered out and explorers went elsewhere.
Production is rising thanks to projects like Point Thomson, an Exxon-led effort east of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where the company began pumping 10,000 barrels of light crude a day in late 2016.
About the same time, ConocoPhillips, the state's biggest oil producer, opened the CD5 field west of Prudhoe. The company expected to produce 16,000 barrels a day and has since approved two other North Slope drilling projects.
BP is working to squeeze more crude out of Prudhoe Bay, which first delivered oil 40 years ago. The company has been pumping torrents of natural gas and seawater underground to juice its recoveries, as well as employing modern imaging to better identify what's left below the surface.
Drilling Plan
The resurgence may pause this year as oil prices struggle to top $50 a barrel. Crude and condensate output from the initial participating area of Prudhoe Bay, the oldest and largest section, may drop 20 percent this year after reaching 198,000 barrels a day in 2016, BP said in its initial plan of development filed with the state last week. It gave a production range for the year of 158,000 to 198,000 barrels a day.
Drilling activity will be reduced compared to 2016 because of the continued impact of oil prices, coupled with increasing field maturity, BP said in its plan.
“As reservoirs age, there is a bit of decline,” Janet Weiss, the president of BP's Alaska division, said in a telephone interview. “What's going on here is a whole lot of hard work to improve maintenance and improve how we do our jobs.“
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108714092&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108714092&jd=108714092
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Deja Vu for West Virginia NatGas Forced Pooling, as Legislation Likely to Fail
Apr 5, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The oil and natural gas industry's ongoing attempt in West Virginia to get some kind of law passed to gather landowners into large tracts for unconventional horizontal drilling will likely have to wait another year as the latest legislation remains stuck in the House Energy Committee with little time left in the regular session.
The industry opted to push for co-tenancy and joint development this year instead of forced pooling legislation, which has failed repeatedly in recent years over property rights concerns. West Virginia is one of only three producing states without a comprehensive pooling law.
SB 576 was approved on a 19-14 vote last month by the state Senate. The bill was amended several times, forcing Senate lawmakers to work through various versions after they had already considered a different, but similar bill earlier in the session.
But the clock has run out in the House of Delegates, where lawmakers are busy with a packed schedule. House Energy Chairman Bill Anderson indicated that there simply wouldn't be enough time to move the bill out of committee for three readings on the House floor and a vote before the 60-day regular session ends at midnight Saturday.
"As West Virginia looks for more opportunities to enhance economic development, the natural gas industry is poised to lead the way," said Anne Blankenship, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA), which was instrumental in helping craft the bill. "However, until the state's mineral efficiency laws are brought into the 21st century, we will never fully maximize all of the job, revenue and consumer benefits that natural gas development has to offer."
WVONGA helped to introduce the first bill, SB 244, in February. The legislation would have required a producer to obtain a simple majority agreement from mineral rights owners within a proposed tract rather than the current 100%. SB 576 -- introduced to appease a wide variety of stakeholders -- kept that provision but would have prevented operators from forcing a co-tenant into a tract if the landowner owned at least a fourth of the mineral rights. Under joint development, operators would have been able to integrate older leases executed before the shale era into large tracts.
The state's oil and gas industry has pushed for years for forced pooling. Proponents argue it would enable producers to better block up their acreage positions for today's far-reaching laterals, maximize production and reduce surface disruption. Blankenship, who was at the Capitol in Charleston on Wednesday, said her organization would continue to lobby for the legislation in the future.
The West Virginia Royalty Owners Association (WVROA) initially opposed SB 576, said Vice President Tom Huber. But a provision added to the bill before it left the Senate that would have prohibited exploration and production companies from deducting post-production expenses unless otherwise specified in leases earned the organization's support.
"Unfortunately, the deal came pretty late in the session, and when you get deals done late in the session, it's pretty difficult to try and get them through," Huber told NGI's Shale Daily. "People have already formed their opinions at that point, and it's hard to change their minds back. It's disappointing, but hopefully over the summer we'll get together with industry and come up with a good compromise bill and try to get it passed next year."
WVROA has attempted successfully in the past to include royalty protections in other forced pooling bills that have failed. Previous legislation was more complex, however, and the industry narrowed its scope this time around to focus solely on getting acreage positions blocked with co-tenancy and joint development. Past versions have dealt with spacing, resource waste, hold-out landowners and even severance taxes, among other things. It was unclear this year if the bill would have passed the House, though.
"It was made clear that there needed to be compromises with the landowner groups, and industry decided it was worth giving us what we were asking for to support the bill," Huber added. "I think there was some trouble getting broader support for that [co-tenancy/joint development] model because it couldn't deal with as many of these broad issues."
The West Virginia Farm Bureau (WVFB), which has a strong lobby throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, supported the co-tenancy measure but not joint development, said spokeswoman Joan Harman. "WVFB believes it wrong to force those who hold old leases to now accept a modern method of drilling without also being allowed to re-negotiate their royalty payments," she said. Harman said the surface-use protections included in SB 576 are also not strong enough to support.
The office of SB 576 sponsor Sen. Charles Trump referred NGI's Shale Daily questions to the House Energy Committee. The legislature was in session on Wednesday and the committee chairman was unavailable. However, Anderson told the news media late Tuesday that before time ran out, his committee had planned to remove the bill's joint development provision and keep only co-tenancy. It was clear, according to Anderson, that the House wasn't going to support lease integration.
The latest developments come after a similar bill failed just hours before the 2015 regular session ended. The House rejected a forced pooling bill after lawmakers failed to agree on several amendments added to the bill by the Senate. The changes resulted in a stalemate 49-49 vote, which defeated the legislation.
In separate legislative news, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives this week passed its first version of the state budget, approving $31.5 billion in spending. The move, which sets the stage for further negotiations, was below the $32.3 billion budget proposed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in February. The Republican-crafted budget leans heavily on spending cuts and does not include a severance tax on natural gas production.
Wolf proposed a 6.5% severance tax to help plug a projected $3 billion budget deficit in the state's next fiscal year, which begins in July. It was his third such proposal since taking office in 2015.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110019-deja-vu-for-west-virginia-natgas-forced-pooling-as-legislation-likely-failing-again
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Coal Is on the Way Out at Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says
Apr 6, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
In Page, Ariz., the operators of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, have announced plans to close it by 2019. The electric utility Dayton Power & Light will shut two coal plants in southern Ohio by next year. Across the country, at least six other coal-fired power plants have shut since November, and nearly 40 more are to close in the next four years.
President Trump campaigned on a pledge to restore the limping American coal industry, vowing to bring jobs and production back to a sector that has been on a steady decline for over a decade. But to do that, he would have to revive demand for coal by electric utilities, which for decades have been the largest consumer of the heavily polluting fuel. Nearly all the coal mined in the United States generates electricity.
On March 28, Mr. Trump headed to the Environmental Protection Agency, where, flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, he signed an executive order directing the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin rolling back a set of regulations on coal-fired power plant pollution that made up the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change legacy.
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But executives at the nation’s largest electric utilities say Mr. Trump’s announcement and the eventual fate of the regulations known as the Clean Power Plan make little difference to them. They still plan to retire coal plants — although perhaps at a slightly slower pace — and, more significant, they have no plans to build new ones.
“For us, it really doesn’t change anything,” said Jeff Burleson, vice president of system planning at Southern Company, an Atlanta-based utility that provides electricity to 44 million people across the Southeast, of the prospective rollback of the Clean Power Plan. “Whatever happens in the near term in the current administration doesn’t affect our long-term planning for future generation,” he said.
As do most electric utilities, Southern Company plans its investment on a 50-year horizon, the expected life span of a new power plant. Its planners do not see coal as economically viable in that time frame.
With or without the Clean Power Plan, power companies say, coal is simply no longer the fuel of choice for keeping the lights on in America — and they do not expect it to make a comeback. Cheaper natural gas and renewable sources like wind and solar power have replaced it.
“We’ll continue to grow the renewables portion of our business and meanwhile rely on natural gas, but we don’t see investing in new coal,” Mr. Burleson said.
A decade-long boom in extracting gas and oil from rock in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to a glut in natural gas, causing its price to plummet below that of coal. Electric utilities have turned away from buying coal and toward the cheaper fuel, a market shift was already underway well before Mr. Obama announced the Clean Power Plan.
“This is not an environmentally driven trend we are seeing,” said Jairo Chung, an associate vice president at Moody’s Investors Service. “What we are seeing now is in the interior of the U.S., where wind is very rich, states and utilities are pushing ahead in investing in it — not because of regulation or environmental concerns, but because it’s economically driven.”
Natural gas produces just half as much planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution as coal — an additional benefit, electricity generators say, as they invest in the new power generators that will provide electricity to America for the next half-century.
This decision is also driven by economics. Electric company executives are including in their long-term profit-and-loss calculations an expectation that the federal government will eventually tax or regulate carbon dioxide pollution.
Several electric utilities, including Southern Company of Atlanta, have already incorporated an anticipated carbon tax into their business models, plugging in estimated fees of $10 to $40 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution. “We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we hold a presumption that there will be a price on carbon on the horizon, either from legislation or regulation,” Mr. Burleson said.
Legal experts say it is not certain that Mr. Trump will succeed in efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan.
And under the current statute, which has yet to be put into effect, the federal government is still required to regulate carbon dioxide pollution. So, even if Mr. Trump does succeed in repealing his predecessor’s carbon dioxide rules, either he or his successor will be required to issue replacement rules.
While Mr. Trump tries to roll back the rules today, executives of electric power generators assume that his successors will eventually reinstate them in some form. Essentially, they say, Mr. Trump’s moves are a bump on the road to a future in which the government constrains climate-warming pollution and consumers increasingly demand cleaner power.
“At this point, it really, in terms of how we’ve been transitioning our fleet and transmission — it probably won’t have a big impact,” John McManus, a vice president at American Electric Power, an Ohio-based utility that provides power to five million people in 11 states, said of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. announcement.
American Electric Power was once built entirely around coal. In 2005, 71 percent of its electricity was coal-fired. But that figure has dropped to 47 percent and is expected to fall further, according to the company’s projections. Natural gas-fired power has grown to 27 percent from 20 percent in 2005, and that share is expected to grow.
Over the next three years, the company plans to invest about $1 billion in new wind and solar generation and $3 billion in new transmission lines to move that electricity, Mr. McManus said. “We have been relying on what makes sense for a different kind of electrical system in the future.”
Still, companies say, the changing environment matters. “This is our long-term view — unless the entire issue of climate change goes away,” he said. “And we don’t expect that to happen.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/business/dealbook/coal-utilities-regulation-trump.html?_r=0
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Renewables Boom; Total U.S. Energy Consumption Inches Up
Apr 5, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By David Hunn
Total energy consumption in the United States increased slightly last year over 2015, pushed largely by a boom in solar, wind and hydro-electric power, according to the Department of Energy.
Consumption of coal decreased by 9 percent to 730 million short tons, the third consecutive year of declines, and nearly offset the increase in renewables, according to a new report from the department’s Energy Information Administration.
Fossil fuels continue to account for the bulk of U.S. energy consumption — 81 percent, slightly lower than 2015 levels and well below the 86 percent they represented in 2005.
Still, the use of petroleum and natural gas both increased in 2016. Crude consumption jumped to 19.6 million barrels per day, buoyed by the transportation sector. Natural gas use leaped to 27.5 billion cubic feet, led by the electric power and industrial sectors — though its use fell slightly in residential and commercial buildings, thanks to a warm winter.
Nuclear fuel use also increased, but just 1 percent. Year-end capacity was up slightly.
Renewables posted the largest increase. Solar energy consumption boomed by more than 37 percent, according to the report. Wind generation jumped nearly 20 percent. And hydroelectric increased by 7 percent as the West Coast recovered from severe drought conditions.
Together, the three made up 91 percent of the increase in renewable power use.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2017/04/05/renewables-boom-total-u-s-energy-consumption-inches-up/
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Your Health vs. Cracker Plant Jobs
Apr 6, 2017 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Terrie Baumgardner
A petrochemical plant is not the only industry that can bring Beaver County tax revenue, employment opportunities, and thriving hotels and restaurants. A $6 billion investment into solar arrays, wind farms and green chemistry ventures would create these same benefits without health “trade-offs,” and hopefully without a $1.65 billion tax break for a multinational corporation. It could happen if the investor had the foresight and courage, in the face of climate change, to pursue clean energy — which now employs twice as many Pennsylvanians as the fossil fuel industry.
Pollution from Shell’s ethane cracker will be a major issue impacting everyone in the region, especially people in proximity to the plant — 2.25 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents is a staggering measure of the greenhouse gases that will be released each year by the largest ethane cracker in North America.
The plant will also emit up to 484 tons per year of volatile organic compounds — three times the VOC output of the Clairton Coke Works — to create asthma-inducing ozone. It will release more than 30 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants, which, like VOCs, include benzene, linked to cancer and childhood leukemia; tolulene, linked to brain, liver, and kidney problems and to spontaneous abortion and birth defects; and, in levels surpassing those of the Clairton Coke Works, the No. 2 cancer driver from air pollution in southwestern Pennsylvania: formaldehyde. The plant will release 159 tons per year of PM2.5 — particulate matter that can pass straight through the lung’s alveoli and into the bloodstream to contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory disease, as well as to lung cancer and bladder cancer.
If the plant is built, hundreds of trucks will spew diesel exhaust daily into the air to serve the giant regional spider web of well pads, compressor stations, cryogenic stations and pipelines — each with its own hazardous pollution — that will be needed to feed this Shell cracker alone. That’s not counting the four more petrochemical plants planned for the area. Add to this picture the polluting plants that will spring up near each cracker because they can process ethylene into plastic products, and you have an astonishingly toxic air soup.
All these emissions will permeate Beaver County, which already has an “F” for ozone smog levels, according to the American Lung Association. And since air quality is regional, bad air will drift into the Pittsburgh region, with its ALA distinction of already having the eighth-worst air quality in the country.
Toxic air + large population = many people in the crosshairs for future harm.
Allegheny County has no reason to welcome the cracker when it ranks in the top 2 percent for cancer risk from air pollution and when its childhood asthma rates are already at around 50 percent higher than the national average.
Given that health impacts increase exponentially with increases in pollution, it is no wonder that the Pennsylvania Medical Society called for a moratorium on fracking, or that Physicians for Social Responsibility and the state of Maryland have joined New York in calling for a total ban. Hundreds of medical studies have linked fracking infrastructure or emissions like those from Shell’s cracker to increases in asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, endocrine disruption (think thyroid and male reproductive disorders) and birth defects.
When it comes to competing messages from Shell, elected officials, and environmental activists, a simple test of credibility is to look at the source.
Shell — which, as reported in The Guardian in February, made a 1991 movie about the dangers of climate change that it subsequently withdrew from public viewing — has no reason to divulge health impacts information or, for that matter, to even acknowledge its existence. In fact, its PR staff and pro-gas marketing campaigners are paid big bucks to spin endless variations on the undocumented but media-embraced narrative of the ethane cracker as the only path to jobs.
Meanwhile, our elected officials are courted, and their campaigns contributed to, by the industry. Some have gas leases on their own properties.
But the plant’s opponents are another story. Most are unpaid volunteers who work tirelessly, through underfunded channels, to unmute the truth of the health-impacts story. Their motive is not profit or electability.
When this planned petrochemical hub has fracked every inch of southwestern Pennsylvania and our rising oceans are choked with an excess of plastic, we will be left asking ourselves, “How could we have not seen it all coming?”
And it may be up to someone else — provided climate change fueled by the industry’s methane emissions leaves some of our species unscathed — to explain to our grandchildren how we traded our health —and our very lives — for a corporate state.
Terrie Baumgardner is a member of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Committee (marcellusawareness.com). She lives in Aliquippa.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2017/04/06/Your-health-vs-cracker-plant-jobs/stories/201704300020
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New York, Other States Challenge Trump Over Climate Change Regulation
Apr 5, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Richard Valdmanis
A coalition of 17 U.S. states filed a legal challenge on Wednesday against efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to roll back climate change regulations, deepening a political rift over his emerging energy policies.
Led by New York state, the coalition said the administration has a legal duty to regulate emissions of the gases scientists believe cause global climate change.
"The law is clear: the EPA must limit carbon pollution from power plants," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement announcing the challenge.
Trump signed an executive order last week targeting climate change regulations ushered in by former President Barack Obama, saying they hinder U.S. energy production and jobs without providing meaningful environmental benefits.
The order's main target was Obama's Clean Power Plan, a law that would require states to slash carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, but which was never implemented because it was challenged in court by 26 Republican-led states.
Trump's order directed the Environmental Protection Agency to review the regulation to decide whether to "suspend, rescind, or revise it." Shortly after, EPA filed a legal motion asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to delay ongoing court proceedings on the regulation to allow for the review.
The New York-led coalition's motion on Wednesday asked the court to throw out the EPA's request to delay court proceedings, saying the delay "would waste the substantial resources already expended in this litigation."
"This case is ripe for decision now, and nothing that EPA has proposed to do obviates the need for this court’s review," according to the statement.
The coalition includes attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington - along with the District of Columbia and a number of smaller localities.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/04/05/us/politics/05reuters-usa-trump-climate-lawsuit.html?_r=0
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Dems Demand Answers About Pruitt Memos on Regulations
Apr 5, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
A trio of Senate Democrats is seeking assurances from EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that the agency's efforts to roll back regulations will include input from scientists and citizens in light of two new agency memoranda outlining new procedures for rulemaking.
Brian Schatz, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ed Markey say in a letter today the new EPA memoranda "have the potential to upend decades of established EPA procedures, undo tremendous gains in clean air and clean water since EPA's founding, and jeopardize EPA's mission to safeguard the health of current and future generations."
One memorandum outlines the structure of a Regulatory Reform Task Force that will identify and recommend rules "that can be repealed, replaced or modified," but the three Democrats argue the task force appears to ignore the input of private citizens and would consider only costs of regulations, not the benefits.
The other document requires offices within the agency submit all steps taken in the regulatory process — regardless of their magnitude or impact — into a centralized system overseen by political appointees in the Office of Policy. The senators argue Pruitt's staff lacks the scientific expertise to evaluate the quality of the information underpinning regulatory actions.
"Your memorandum will make unscientific and anti-scientific decisions like this more common in the future, and it will force the public to question whether their chief health and environmental enforcer really has their best interests at heart," the senators wrote.
WHAT'S NEXT: The White House will publish in the coming weeks its Spring 2017 Unified Agenda highlighting its efforts to reduce regulations and costs
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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GOP Chairman: Climate Change Alarmists Want to 'Control People’s Lives'
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Cristina Marcos
The chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Wednesday that people raising red flags about climate change have ulterior motives beyond wanting to protect the environment.
“Climate change alarmists always predict cataclysmic events that will inevitably occur when the world’s temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a House floor speech.
“But all the howling and gnashing of teeth signifies nothing. It is all posturing for their own purposes, including a desire to control people’s lives or get another government grant or an academic promotion.”
Smith has served as Science chairman since 2013 and has long rejected the scientific consensus that humans are causing of global warming.
He authored legislation that passed the House last week to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from using scientific studies or data that aren’t publicly available to justify new regulations.
Smith maintains that nothing outlined by the Paris climate agreement, legislation in Congress or any Obama administration regulation would significantly reduce climate change.
“So the next time you hear or read about some imminent calamity due to climate change, remember it’s just all words and no action. The real solution isn't more ineffective and costly regulations; it’s innovative technology that will make all forms of energy cleaner and less expensive.”
Back in January, Smith took to the House floor to dismiss a New York Times column linking climate change to the plight of starving children in Africa as “fake news.”
“This may be a new high, or maybe a new low, for climate alarmists and their exaggerations,” Smith said at the time.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/327492-gop-chairman-climate-change-alarmists-have-desire-to-control-peoples
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Senators Push Bill to Fund Carbon Capture Projects
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Two senators introduced a bill Wednesday to boost carbon capture projects for power plants.
The bill, from Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) would open up new financing opportunities for carbon capture energy projects by letting companies use tax-exempt bonds issued by state and local governments to fund for them.
In a statement, both senators said the bill could help incentivize carbon capture technology among energy and industrial firms, a strategy they say would help both reduce carbon emissions and support the construction sector.
Portman called the bill a “win-win for jobs and the environment,” and Bennet said it was “proof that Democrats, Republicans, labor unions, industry, and environmentalists can come together to advance policies that will protect our planet and create good-paying jobs.”
Lawmakers have increasingly tried to push carbon capture technology bills through Congress, but with little success.
Two senators last year introduced a bill expanding research tax credits for the technology, but it never received a hearing.
President Trump has said he wants to expand “clean coal” as president, something that supporters say can be accomplished by increasing the use of carbon capture technology.
Trump’s budget proposal, though, “focuses” funding for Energy Department offices that promote carbon capture research “on limited, early-stage applied energy research and development activities where the Federal role is stronger.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/327487-senators-push-bill-to-fund-carbon-capture-projects
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The Flawed Case Against Pricing Carbon
Apr 5, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Greg Ip
This week Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that humans do indeed contribute to a warming climate.
Mr. Pruitt’s concession to scientific consensus came with a caveat: “The real issue is how much we contribute to it and measuring that with precision.” Indeed, how regulators measure climate impact matters more than agreeing that such an impact exists. This makes President Donald Trump’s order last week scrapping official estimates of the “social cost of carbon” especially significant. Without actually disputing the science behind climate change, it drastically raises the bar to acting on it.
Federal rules are supposed to cost the economy and society less than the harm they prevent. But regulators long lacked any benchmark for the costs of greenhouse gas emissions. Courts have ruled they can’t assume the costs are zero, so in 2010 Barack Obama’s administration, after lengthy study, began estimating the social cost of carbon. It put the future damage, such as from rising sea levels, crop damage and heat-related death, of emitting one metric ton of carbon dioxide in 2015 at $42.
Critics argued the Obama administration chose assumptions that inflated that figure. Mr. Trump responded by instructing agencies to use broad regulatory guidance issued in 2003 that allows much less stringent assumptions. Yet most of the criticism of the initial estimates doesn’t stand up. Indeed, equally plausible assumptions would justify a higher figure.
The most widespread criticism of Mr. Obama’s social cost of carbon is that it was derived from complex models that link emissions to atmospheric concentrations to temperature and then to economic damage.
This, they say, yields results that are so uncertain they can’t justify costly and irreversible mitigation measures. Critics also note that actual temperatures seem less responsive to CO2 than models predicted, which the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged in 2014.
But the answer to imperfect models isn’t to ignore them but to improve them. Michael Greenstone, a University of Chicago economist who led the Obama administration’s effort, says about 150 reputable studies of climate damage have been released since 2009 and they would appear to justify an even higher social cost of carbon: “The evidence so far is that the damages are greater than we understood” for example due to heat-related deaths in India.
And uncertainty alone doesn’t justify inaction. Military and terrorist attacks are also highly uncertain, yet the U.S. spends more than 3% of national income to prevent them on the theory that spending nothing makes an attack more likely. Moreover, their consequences are asymmetric: peace in the best case scenario, nuclear annihilation in the worst.
The consequences of global warming are similarly uncertain and asymmetric. One can posit zero or even positive effects, such as fewer deaths from cold in the best case. One can also posit massive and arbitrary destruction from rising sea levels, storms and biological die-off in the worst.
Robert Pindyck, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues climate policy should be geared to preventing extreme scenarios rather than the unreliable base-case projections of models. According to his survey of experts, to eliminate even a small risk of a 20% loss of future global income would require a social cost of carbon equal to $80 to $100 per ton.
Another controversy is over the rate at which the benefit of preventing future harm is discounted. As in all of finance, the lower the discount rate, the greater the value in today’s dollars. Federal guidance in 2003 required regulators to discount benefits at both 3% (the real, or after-inflation return, on government bonds) and 7% (the return on private investments). The Obama administration used only 3%. Critics note 7% would have produced a far lower figure. Yet with time, the lower discount rate looks ever more sensible. In 2003 government bonds yielded 2% after inflation; today, just 0.5%.
The most valid criticism of the social cost of carbon is that the Obama administration calculated the harm U.S. emissions cause to the entire world, departing from the convention of considering only harm to U.S. residents, which would slash the $42 cost per ton of CO2 to as little as $3.
There was a logic to this. The harm that carbon dioxide causes to any country, unlike acid rain or mercury, is the same no matter where on earth it originates.
Yet holding the U.S. to a global benchmark could cause high carbon industries to move to countries that don’t adopt the same standard, leaving emissions unchanged and Americans worse off.
That doesn’t sit well with Mr. Trump’s “America first” worldview. Mr. Greenstone responds that had the U.S. ignored the implications for the world in its own climate rules, it wouldn’t have extracted emissions commitments from China in 2014 and the rest of the world in 2015.
If the global cost of carbon is mostly a tool for inducing other countries to cooperate, Mr. Trump could turn this to his advantage. Chinese President Xi Jinping will likely press him this week to abide by the 2015 emissions limits. Mr. Trump could respond that if China subjects all its decisions to the social cost of carbon, the U.S. will do the same.
First, though, Mr. Trump has to decide he cares.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-u-s-needs-a-social-cost-of-carbon-1491418457
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